> Sorry, Mr. Parker really doesn't know what he is talking about.
> They are mutations; check with any microbiologist. Mr. Parker doesn't
> mention chromosomal resistance, either. Ask the microbiologist about them
> and about the Luria fluctuation experiment, too.
Dr. Parker doesn't deny mutations: "But once again, let me say that
it's not that good mutations are theoretically impossible. Rather, the
price is too high. To explain evolution by the gradual selection of
beneficial mutations, one must also put up with the thousands of harmful
mutations that would have to occur along the way. Even though he tends
to be one of the "old guard" defenders of classic neo-Darwinian
evolution, Ayala (1978) faces the problem squarely in his article in the
Scientific American book, _Evolution_. He is talking about variation
within species (not kind, but species, the smallest possible unit). He
says that variation within species is much greater than Darwin
postulated. He speaks of such variation as 'enormous' and
'staggering.' Yet when he gets to the actual figures, the variation is
less than I, as a creationist, would have expected. (Ayala did say his
figures under-estimated the real variation.)
For creationists, all this variation poses no problem at all. If living
things were created to multiply and fill the earth, then great variation
within kind is simply good design. There would be no price to pay for
created variability, since it would result from plan, purpose, and
special creation, not from time,chance, and mutation. Mutations have
introduced further variability since creation, but it's the kind of
variability a bull introduces into a china shop!
What problem did Ayala, as an evolutionist, see with all this staggering
variability? Just this: For each beneficial mutant a species
accumulated, the price would be a thousand or more harmful mutations.
When genetic burden gets too great, offspring are so likely to serious
hereditary defects that the ability of the species to survive is
threatened. And time only makes this evolutionary problem worse." from
_Creation - The Facts of Life_, by Gary Parker, pp 71-72.
Bill